It is difficult to travel through many urban areas without seeing the seemingly ubiquitous food truck. From their humble origins supplying Hot Dogs and Burritos to construction workers and tourists – some entrepreneurs have branched out into quality foodstuffs, covering a variety of tastes. Ergo – the Food Truck has gone upscale!

So upscale in fact, that the humble trucks have gone international – now invading the streets of the urban epicurean center of the world – Paris.

So are the French buying cheap eats? Throw a little Camembert on that burger, and a slice of truffle in that soup, and voila!…

You Betcha!

They even have the Chile pepper averse French (Hot sauce ain’t on the menu in France) eating Tacos… Which is amazing.

An artisanal taco truck has come to Paris. The Cantine California started parking here in April, the latest in a recent American culinary invasion that includes chefs at top restaurants; trendy menu items like cheesecake, bagels and bloody Marys; and notions like chalking the names of farmers on the walls of restaurants.

In France, there is still a widespread belief that the daily diet in the United States consists of grossly large servings of fast food. But in Paris, American food is suddenly being seen as more than just restauration rapide. Among young Parisians, there is currently no greater praise for cuisine than “très Brooklyn,” a term that signifies a particularly cool combination of informality, creativity and quality.

All three of those traits come together in the American food trucks that have just opened here, including Cantine California, which sells tacos stuffed with organic meat (still a rarity in France), and a hugely popular burger truck called Le Camion Qui Fume (The Smoking Truck), owned by Kristin Frederick, a California native who graduated from culinary school here.

“I got every kind of push-back,” said Ms. Frederick, 31. “People said: ‘The French will never eat on the street. The French will never eat with their hands. They will never pay good money for food from a truck.’ ” (Her burger with fries costs 10 euros, about $13.)

Since the founding of Washington, it has been tres facile to sense the French influence in the circles, grids and diagonals bequeathed by Pierre L’Enfant, and in recent years, it seems no office is more than steps away from a French (or French-named) place to buy a croissant.

You’d think Sylvain Cornevaux, cultural director of the Alliance Francaise, would consider his mission accomplished now that it’s so easy to pick up baguettes in our French-formatted city. He doesn’t.

“The bread, the architecture — these things are French, and these things are very nice, but they are also very old,” Cornevaux said. And so this month, in an effort to connect the District’s streets with the New France, he has organized a festival of French hip-hop dance.

Oui. French hip-hop dance. Does that sound oxymoronic? Au contraire, Cornevaux explains. Given the influx of immigrants from former French colonies and the general French fascination with urban American life, hip-hop culture caught on in France but quickly merged with higher-brow art. The result is choreography that’s now being exported back to the United States. And thus we have “Urban Corps: A Transatlantic Hip-Hop Festival,” which continues through Friday, May 25, at venues in Arlington County and the District.

“It is very interesting, because hip-hop was born in the U.S. but it has quickly developed in another way in France,” Cornevaux said. “Hip-hop was still an emerging artistic field in the beginning of the ’80s, but at the beginning of the ’90s, many hip-hop artists started working a lot with classical choreographers and with artistic directors of theaters. [Dancers] kept their hip-hop skills but transformed to show them in a contemporary manner. They incorporate hip-hop, mime and Capoeira,” a Brazilian blend of athletic dance and martial arts.

The Alliance, a nonprofit group dedicated to promoting French language and culture, worked hard to obtain visas for 13 dancers affiliated with four French companies, and each troupe received funding from its home town or region to cover travel. The city of Nantes even paid to ship extensive sets for KLP Company’s show “Tour of Duty” to that Atlas Performing Arts Center.

“Tour of Duty” may sound like a show inspired by military battles or war video games, but according to press materials and the company’s Web site, it’s actually a narrative tracing the history of hip-hop in Brooklyn, beginning in 1960, and recounting years of gang wars and communities coming together.

Junious Brickhouse, founder of the District-based hip-hop collective Urban Artistry, is a bit skeptical about the storyline — Brooklyn? What about the South Bronx? — but suspects that the dancing will be on target. “I’ll be honest. I think there are some things that get lost in translation,” Brickhouse said, “but at the end of the day, I just want to get down with some nonverbal art.”…

French Nazis aren’t any different than their American counterparts… Now unlike the US where drive-bys and school shootings enabled by our out of control gun culture are an everyday occurance – this level of violence is something drastic for France, as it is in most of the world.

Sarkozy: Gunman in French shootings driven by racism

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that the same gunman who shot dead a teacher and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday was also responsible for the killing of three soldiers last week, apparently motivated by racism.

“We know that it is the same person and the same weapon that killed the soldiers, the children and the teacher,” Sarkozy said in a televised address, saying the terrorism alert level in France had been raised.

“This act is odious and cannot remain unpunished.”

Sarkozy also said he would suspend his campaign for France’s April-May presidential election until Wednesday.

French paper Le Point reported that French police are searching for three former paratroopers in connection with the Toulouse Jewish school shooting that left four dead.

According to the report, the paratroopers were dismissed over suspicion of being neo-Nazis in 2008. The Jerusalem Post could not confirm the report.

French police said earlier Monday that forensic evidence revealed the gun used to kill four people — a teacher, his two children and another child — at the Ozar Hatorah school was the same used to slay three French soldiers on two separate occasions nearby.

The victims in the shootings were all members of minority groups but the exact motivation of the killer is yet unknown.

The first murder linked to the gun took place on March 11. Police found the body of Imad Ibn-Ziaten, a 30-year-old staff sergeant of North African descent, dead behind a school in Toulouse. Investigators suspect the off duty serviceman was lured there by his murderer.

Last Thursday a gunman riding a scooter and wearing a black helmet opened fire on three French soldiers in uniform at a shopping mall in Montauban, a city 50 kilometers north of Toulouse. Abel Chennouf, 24, and Mohamed Legouad, 26, both of North African descent, were killed. Loic Liber, 28, of Afro-Caribbean descent, was left in a coma.

On Monday morning a motorcyclist similar in description to the gunman involved in the second attack drove up to the entrance of Ozar Hatorah in Toulouse and opened fire on a group of parents and children that gathered outside on the start of the school day.

Yonathan Sandler, a 30-year-old teacher from Jerusalem; his two children Aryeh, 6, and Gavriel, 3; and 8-year-old Miriam Monstango, the daughter of the school’s principal, died in the attack and several others were wounded.

“We are struck by the similarities between the modus operandi of today’s drama and those last week even if we have to wait to have more elements from the police to confirm this hypothesis,” said French President Nicolas Sarkozy at a press conference.

French police have launched a massive manhunt for the suspect while French Interior Minister Claude Gueant has ordered increased security at Jewish schools throughout the country.

Sarkozy, who is facing an election later this year, is personally overseeing the investigation in Toulouse. In a press conference, he vowed to find the perpetrator of the attacks…

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any stranger – a French Judge has convicted Continental Airlines of involuntary homicide for a piece of metal falling off one of their airplanes which is believed to contributed to the Air France Concorde crash in 2000. I am not terribly sure how the French Court could assign blame here – much less a criminal penalty.

The only thing I can see Continental guilty of, in my experience… Is losing bags.

A French judge ruled on Monday that Continental Airlines and one of its mechanics were guilty of involuntary homicide for their role in the 2000 crash of an Air France Concorde jet that killed 113 people.

Judge Dominique Andréassier of the court in Pontoise, northwest of Paris, ordered the American carrier to pay a fine of $265,000 and civil damages of more than $1.3 million to Air France. John Taylor, 42, the mechanic, was fined $2,650 and given a suspended 15-month prison sentence.

Henri Perrier, 81, considered the “father” of the iconic supersonic jet and an executive of Aérospatiale, the company that built the Concorde, and two other French officials, Jacques Hérubel, and Claude Frantzen, formerly of the French airline regulator who certified the plane’s airworthiness, were acquitted.

A 2002 report by French air accident investigators concluded that a small strip of metal had fallen off a Continental DC-10 that took off minutes earlier and that the piece punctured a tire of the Concorde as it accelerated down the runway on July 25, 2000. The tire disintegrated in seconds, investigators said, sending shards of rubber into the fuel tanks and causing a catastrophic fire. All 109 passengers and crew members were killed, along with 4 people on the ground.

Olivier Metzner, the French lawyer for Continental in the case, vigorously challenged the investigators’ findings in court, however, and presented a starkly different scenario. Mr. Metzner argued that the investigators disregarded accounts of the accident from more than 20 witnesses who said the plane appeared to have caught fire at a point on the runway several yards before it reached the metal strip.

Continental said it would appeal the “absurd” ruling, which took more than a decade to work its way through the French courts. “To find that any crime was committed in this tragic accident is not supported either by the evidence at trial or by aviation authorities and experts around the world,” Nick Britton, a Continental spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement.

Glamorous French politician Rachida Dati has been forced to issue a public apology after confusing oral sex with inflation.

The 44-year-old former justice minister and MEP is frequently nicknamed ‘Rachida Barbie’ because of her poor understanding of complicated political issues.

But nobody expected her extraordinary mistake on the national Europe 1 radio station on Sunday.

Asked about overseas investment funds profiteering during a period of economic uncertainty, she said: ‘I see some of them looking for returns of 20 or 25 per cent, at a time when fellatio is almost non-existent.’

In French, fellatio – a sex act performed on a man – is ‘fellation’, which sounds a bit like inflation, which is the same word in French and English.

Apologising for the hugely embarrassing slip on her Facebook site, Miss Dati said: ‘This kind of thing happens if you speak too quickly on this kind of programme.’

The single mother of one added : ‘It is unfortunate that this is the only political message that has been received on such a serious subject.’

Miss Dati was fired from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government last year because of her inability to do her job properly, and her frivolous nature.

She frequently appeared on the cover of magazines in designer dresses and stirred up speculation about the mystery father of her baby daughter to the extent that some still think it might be Mr Sarkozy himself.

Miss Dati was a love rival of Mr Sarkozy’s third wife, Carla Bruni, for many months as both battled for a place in the Elysee Palace bed chamber.

A new book claims that Miss Bruni received police and security services file in March – including phone call listings and text messages – showing that Miss Dati and Sophie Douzal, the President’s ex-sister-in-law, then spread unkind rumours about the First Lady’s love life.

Miss Dati was prepared to ‘stop at nothing to return to’ Mr Sarkozy’s government, according to ‘Carla and the Ambitious’ by journalists Michael Darmon and Yves Derai.

As a result, she and her fellow plotter ‘hatched a plan more fitting of the tradition of salon scheming than of a modern political fight’, says the book.

According to another biography Miss Bruni once pointed to the presidential bed and hissed at Miss Dati: ‘You’d have loved to have been in there, wouldn’t you?’

When Miss Dait was effectively banished by Mr Sarkozy to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where she remains an MEP, she was said to be in floods of tears.

This case has rocked France, and much of the world. A French mother is found to have first had, then murdered 8 babies and buried them in the back yard. And this is the fifth time in the last 7 years cases of this have been discovered in France.

With the number of women, right here in the US of A killing their babies – this is hardly a “French Problem” – but I am not sure I buy the psychological explanation provided in the following article…

But I guess it beats Demonic possession.

As to the husband, who was apparently busy enough to make 10 babies not knowing something wasn’t right…

Hmmmmm…

I am waiting for the first Burqua/Burka Murder, where an Islamic woman kills her Mullah for making her go around in an 8th century outfit…

Probably some enterprising Dr. Phil shrink will chalk it up to “style deprivation”.

If you can hurt one of these, regardless of the color of the wrapper... You gotta be sick!

The question is as horrifying as it is important to ask: Why are a rising number of French women killing their newborn babies? Finding the answer has become a matter of urgency following the discovery on Wednesday of eight infants allegedly smothered to death and buried by their mother in northern France. And with that case marking at least the fifth instance of multiple infanticide reported in France since 2003, it has become vital for the nation to confront the phenomenon that appears to be behind it all: a mental condition known as pregnancy denial.

This latest case of newborn murder in France was uncovered in the northern town of Villiers-au-Tertre, after eight tiny bodies were found buried in the gardens of two separate homes. Six of the cadavers were unearthed on July 29 by police at the house of Dominique Cottrez, 45, and her husband Pierre-Marie, 47. Investigators searched their home after the resident of a house previously owned by Dominique’s parents turned up two tiny bodies on July 24 while digging a pool in the backyard. According to the French prosecutor leading the inquiry in the town, a short distance south of Lille, Dominique has admitted to hiding her pregnancies — and the killings of her babies — from her husband, whom police describe as being “dumbstruck” by the revelations. Dominique was charged for the murders; Pierre-Marie has been cleared of wrongdoing and released but could yet become a subject of investigation.

The case in Villiers-au-Tertre is only the most recent example of a father of slain babies being apparently unaware of his wife’s pregnancies. Four other such cases since 2003 include that of Véronique Courjault, 42, who was convicted in June 2009 of killing three of her newborns — two of whom she hid in a freezer and were later discovered by her husband. And this past March, Céline Lesage, 38, was found guilty of murdering six of her babies after she hid her pregnancies from the men who had fathered them. Both women were sentenced to prison — Courjault for eight years and Lesage for 15. Read the rest of this entry »